History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 203

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His first wife, Mrs. Cora Heslep, died in 1912, the mother of three children: Kenneth, a plumber at St. Albans; Mar- jorie C., wife of Richard Yarborough, of Charleston; and Frank W., a pharmacist.

In February, 1915, Doctor Heslep married Ada (Thrasher) Welch. Her first husband, Capt. I. A. Welch, became a well known citizen of St. Albans, a mining engineer and developed some extensive coal fields. He had served as a captain in the Confederate Army, being a member of a company raised at Elk River in Kanawha County. Captain Welch's first wife was Miss Mary Snyder. In 1900 he married Miss Ada Thrasher, of Pearisburg, Virginia, the same town where the first wife of Doctor Heslep lived. Captain Welch died in February, 1902. By his last mar- riage there were no children, but Mrs. Heslep reared from infancy her nephew, Thomas J. Pearson, who graduated in 1922 from the St. Albans High School. Mrs. Heslep is an active worker in the Baptist Church, and has been a factor in literary and social affairs at her home town. She is a charter member of the St. Albans Chapter of the Eastern Star, is a past worthy matron, is present secretary of the Chapter and has been a delegate to the Grand Chapter.

JOHN WYATT DAWSON. A resident of Charleston nearly forty years, J. W. Dawson has been easily one of the con- spicuous figures in coal development, railroad construction and many related fields of industrial activity and develop- ment. While most men have the time and many of them similar opportunities, only a few become the source and directing energy of such an astonishing array of achieve- ments as Mr. Dawson.

He is a native of old Virginia, born in Albemarle County in 1863, where the Dawson family has been connected with affairs for several generations. His parents were George W. and Sallie Sidonia (May) Dawson. His father was a member of the Richmond City Guards and a Confederate soldier throughout the war.

J. W. Dawson felt the spur of independent action and achievement at an early age. He left home at the age of fifteen, and his first steady employment was in the con- struction service on the Loraine Branch of what is now the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, then known as the Richmond & Allegheny. Mr. Dawson was a railroad man for a number of years, and in that time filled every position from a

laborer to superintendent of transportation. For several years be was an operator and train dispatcher.

He was still in the ranks of common labor when he came to West Virginia in 1882, at the age of nineteen, beginning his service with the Kanawha & Michigan Railway, now part of the New York Central lines, with headquarters at Charleston. When he resigned from the service he had been for ten years superintendent of transportation.

From the operating side of railroading Mr. Dawson took up railroad building. Most of his service as a railroad builder has been auxiliary to and in connection with the opening of coal mines in West Virginia and old Virginia. He located and bought the lands for and organized the Daw- son Coal & Coke Company, with headquarters at Dante on the C. C. & O. Railway. These lands are located in Wise, Dickenson and Russell counties, Virginia. To open these mines he built in 1902 the first nine miles of the C. C. & O. Railway in Virginia. Some years ago he sold his interests in the company, but it still remains one of the most profit- able coal operating concerns in the Virginia-West Vir- ginia fields. This is only one of a number of large and successful coal and construction enterprises carried out by Mr. Dawson. In 1896 he was identified with the Boomer Coal & Coke Company at Boomer, Fayette County, West Virginia, now owned by the Hanna interests at Cleveland. Following this he was one of the reorganizers of the Kellys Creek Mining Company at Mammoth in Kanawha County. He then built the plant and operated the mines of the Kellys Creek Colliery Company, and remained at the head of that corporation fifteen years. While in the high tide of his activities Mr. Dawson built a number of short rail- roads to furnish transportation access to new coal fields which he was opening. A striking fact is that every one of the coal mining and railroad construction enterprises inaugurated and carried out by Mr. Dawson was success- ful and made money.

When the Government early in the war began selecting men of conspicuous abilities in various lines to organize and direct the industries of the nation on a basis of war time efficiency, Mr. Dawson was naturally invited as an adviser and executive under the Fuel Administration. He served as production manager of West Virginia, and had charge of the production of coal in the state for war pur- poses. It was a service he rendered wholly without com- pensation and from a patriotic duty and devotion. Through his ceaseless activities and his influence with both operators and miners in the state he stimulated the production of coal to the utmost. When he responded to the invitation of the Government Mr. Dawson relinquished practically all of his active connection with the coal business. One of his largest investments now is in California, forty miles north of Sacramento, where he and his associates are developing the largest remaining tract of sugar pine forests now remain- ing in the United States.

Mr. Dawson married Miss Lyda Power. Their two chil- dren are Joseph Power Dawson and Catherine May Daw- son.

FRANK M. SYDNOR. One of the representative business men of Marlinton, and a member of an old Southern family, is Frank M. Sydnor, who for many years was identified with the C. & O. Railroad before embarking in the in- surance and brokerage line. While railroad work has its possible disadvantages, like every other vocation, it does teach methodical business methods, based on punctuality and exactness, methods which are equally indispensable for en- tire success in any other line of effort. Mr. Sydnor feels that his years of railroad training were a valuable school of experience.

Frank M. Sydnor was born at Bremo Bluff, Virginia, August 7, 1881, the only child of his father's first marriage. His parents were William O. and Mollie (Sutherland) Sydnor, the latter of whom died in 1883. William O. Sydnor was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, December 13, 1857, and is a son of Robert H. and Mary J. (Barrett) Sydnor, who were of English birth. Before the war be- tween the states Robert H. Sydnor was a planter and slave

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owner. William O. Sydnor, who is now assistant general freight agent for the C. & O. Railroad, with headquarters at Huntington, West Virginia, has been a railroad man almost his entire life. lle began work in 1878, with the Norfolk & Western road, and from there went to the Rich- mond & Alleghany, but since 1881 has been continuously identified with the C. & O., and is not only one of the best known and highly valued but one of the oldest railroad men in West Virginia.

William O. Sydnor has been thrice married. After the death of his first wife he married Mary Wilson, and they had three children: Leslie, Mary and William O. His third marriage was with Mrs. Mattie Seig. They have no children. Although never active in a political sense, Mr. Sydnor has always been affiliated with the democratic party.

Following the early death of his young mother Frank M. Sydnor was taken by his paternal grandparents, with whom he made his home until he was nineteen years old. His education was secured in the publie schools, and in the meanwhile he learned the art of telegraphy. In 1901 he became telegraph operator and station agent for the C. & O. Railroad at Goshen, Virginia, and later at Marlinton, West Virginia, to which place he came in February, 1904, and has maintained his home here ever since. In 1912 he re- tired from railroad work and engaged in the insurance and brokerage business, the latter including the handling of eoal, hay, grain and kindred commodities. He has built up a fine trade, and is named as one of the able and depend- able business men of this city.

On October 29, 1902, Mr. Sydnor married Miss Loula Johnson, of Prince George County, Virginia, and they have one daughter, Rebecca. A democrat in politics, he has officiated as mayor and during the World war was chair- man of the Home Service Section of the Red Cross.

HARRY EASTWOOD is one of the younger members of the Charleston bar, but in less than a half dozen years has established a substantial practice and a secure reputation in his profession.

He was born at Mount Tell, Jackson County, West Vir- ginia, in 1890, son of W. H. and Margaret A. (Duff) Eastwood. For many years the home of the Eastwood family was at Catlettsburg, Kentucky, where W. H. East- wood was born, and where his father, Jesse Eastwood, was an honored resident. Jesse Eastwood was a Union soldier in the Civil war, a member of Company A, Twenty- second Kentucky Infantry, and was all through that struggle. In his town he was a man of extensive prop- erty interests, owning tracts of land in the vicinity of Catlettsburg. W. H. Eastwood spent some years in Jaek- son County, West Virginia, but subsequently removed to Poca, Putnam County.

It was on a farm in Putnam County that Harry East- wood grew to manhood. He acquired most of his eduea- tion in the schools of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, studied law at home and in the Hamilton College of Law in Chicago, and was admitted to the bar at Charleston in 1917. Since that year he has given attention to the increasing responsi- bilities of his practice. He is senior member of the law firm of Eastwood, Rowan & Thompson, in the Kanawha National Bank Building. Mr. Eastwood handles the gen- eral practice, hut has avoided cases in the criminal law, and his time is more and more taken up with legal inter- ests of corporation and commercial and industrial litigation.

Mr. Eastwood is a member of the Central Methodist Church of Charleston. He is a Uniformed Rank Knight of Pythias and D. O. K. K., and is also a member of the Lodge and Encampment of the I. O. O. F.

He married Miss Ella May Bradley, of Louisa, Kentucky. Their two children are Russell H. and Harold P.

NATHAN CLAWSON MCNEIL. No matter what notable achievements a man can justly claim as personal he always cherishes a feeling of pride in those of an honorable an- cestral line. Thus Nathan Clawson McNeil, prominent lawyer, state senator and concerned with many leading interests in Pocahontas County, counts as one of his most valued assets his direet descent from Thomas McNeil, that

sturdy character of over 150 years ago who was known as the pioneer of Swago.

Thomas McNeil was of Seotch parentage and possibly of Scotch birth. He was one of the earliest of the pioneers to brave the rigors and perils of the frontier west of the Alleghany Mountains. About 1770 he entered 300 acres of land in Pocahontas County, now West Virginia, defended his claim with fearless courage, and was one of the first in his section to improve land and cultivate it profitably. His wife, Mary Ireson MeNeil, was of no less rugged a type than himself, and in their pioneer home of primitive con- struction they reared a family of six children with habits of industry that have been characteristic of the McNeils ever since.

Jonathan MeNeil, the eldest of his parents' children, spent his life as a farmer. He married Phoebe Moore, who was a daughter of Moses Moore, and they had four chil- dren: John, William, Moore and Preston. Mrs. McNeil was born February 13, 1774, and was thirteen years old at the time of the celebrated raid, which she remembered well. Other occupations carried on by Jonathan MeNeil were milling and powder making, while his wife was an expert in weaving and fulling cloth.

William MeNeil, son of Jonathan and Phoebe McNeil, and grandfather of Nathan Clawson McNeil, was well and favorably known over what is now Pocahontas County as one of the early and well informed school teachers. He married Nancy Griffey, of Franklin County, Virginia, and they made their home on a part of the old MeNeil home- stead. They became the parents of seven children: Jona- than, James, Claiborne, Moore, Jane, Elizabeth and Agnes. Claiborne MeNeil, of the above family, spent the greater part of his life near Buckeye, in his native county, where he was held in esteem as a man of sterling character. To his marriage with Elizabeth Adkinson the following ehil- dren were born: Charlotte (Mrs. Joseph Pennell), Joshua B., D. T. and Nathan Clawson.

Nathan Clawson MeNeil was born in a log cabin at Bnek- eye Cove, Pocahontas County, West Virginia, November 7, 1865, the youngest of his parents' four children. He at- tended the public schools and the high school at Hillsboro, and then entered the law department of the University of West Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1888. Later he took special courses in law under John B. Minor, which was a great privilege, as Professor Minor was one of the most brilliant instructors in the university. Mr. MeNeil was admitted to the har in 1890, and prior to the establish- ment of the county seat at Marlinton, engaged in practice at Huntersville, the old county seat. He lived at other points in earlier life, having taught school in the county for six years, beginning at the age of seventeen, but has maintained his home at Marlinton since leaving Huntersville.

In Mr. MeNeil his fellow citizens found not only an ahle lawyer but a broad-minded man of affairs, vitally interested in the welfare of county and state, a man who has been very prominent politically and one who has never failed to consider a public office as a public trust. For fourteen years he served as chairman of the Republican County Executive Committee, and was elected a member of the State Senate. He served with honor and efficiency in the sessions of 1907-1909, taking a very active part as chair- man of the committee on election and privileges, at a time when it was one of the most important committees in the Legislative branch. He managed the campaign of Hon. Nathan B. Scott for the United States Senate and made the nominating speech. Mr. McNeil was the father of the first state game law.

On November 15, 1904, Mr. McNeil married Miss Ruth Young, a former pupil. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine.

JOHN A. PRESTON. While his home was always in his native community, and the place he loved best in all the world, Greenbrier County, the late John A. Preston was in every sense a man of commanding importance and influence through West Virginia. He was a great lawyer, and was the favorite son of his native county. People respected,

Harry Castword

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trusted, admired and loved him because they knew him to be worthy of all and that he was true to his high ideals, ideals that he translated into action and conduct that fully earned him his high place in county and state.

His father was David R. Preston, a native of South- western Virginia, a minister of the Presbyterian faith, who completed his theological studies in Princeton University. David R. Preston probably came to Greenbrier County from Kentucky in the decade of the '30s. He had a charge at Union in Monroe County, but for many years his home was near Lewisburg in Greenbrier County. He married Jeanette Creigh, who represented one of the oldest and best known families in Greenbrier County. The Creighs were prominent Confederates during the Civil war. Rev. David R. Preston died when a comparatively young man. He and his wife had six children, the late John A. Preston being next to the youngest.

John A. Preston was born at the old Preston homestead, "Tuscawilla,"' March 14, 1847. On April 26, 1917, a few weeks past his seventieth birthday, he left home in Lewis- burg to go to Clarksburg and perhaps due to the overexer- tion of getting to the station he died soon after taking his place in the railroad coach and while still in full view of the old farm and home where he was born. He was reared there and accustomed to the work of the fields when he was a boy. He attended local schools, also the Lewisburg Academy, and in January or February, 1865, before he was eighteen, he enlisted in Company K of the Fourteenth Virginia Cavalry in the Confederate Army. He was in the service until the close of the war the following April. In later years he took a great deal of interest in the history of the Civil war period, and particularly in the survivors of the cause for which he had fought. He was an eloquent orator who was in great demand for memorial and reunion speeches. Some- time after the war he entered Washington College, where he completed his literary education in 1869, and that institution had Gen. Robert E. Lee as its president and in whose honor it is now Washington and Lee University. Mr. Preston began the study of law with Samuel Price, who was lieutenant governor of Virginia during the Civil war. He read in Governor Price's office at Lewisburg, was ad- mitted to the bar and for several years practiced with the former lieutenant governor and later married his daughter, Sallie Lewis Price. Mr. Preston practiced law in Green- brier and surrounding counties with a degree of success that few of his contemporaries ever obtained. In 1876 he was elected state's attorney for the county, and by successive elections held that post of duty for sixteen years. In 1896 he was again elected to the same office for four years. In 1914, only a few years before his death, he was elected to fill out an unexpired term as county prosecutor. In the prosecution of criminals he made a great reputation for his vigor and fearlessness.

In addition to this long term of public service Mr. Preston was elected and served two terms in the House of Delegates, in both regular and special sessions. In 1910 he was elected to the State Senate, holding that office four years. He was on many of the important committees of both Houses. For a number of years he was on the Board of Directors of the State Asylum for the Insane at Weston. He had served for a number of years, until his death, as one of the trustees of Washington and Lee University. He was an ardent democrat, and was a power in maintaining and build- ing up his party and one of the political speakers most in demand by the state and district committees.

Mr. Preston for many years was a faithful member of the Old Stone Presbyterian Church of Lewisburg, a church founded and built in 1796. He served it as deacon and also as ruling elder.

A concise estimate of the life and character of this great Greenbrier lawyer and citizen is in the following editorial quoted from the Charleston Gazette:

"In the death of Hon. John A. Preston, of Greenbrier, the state has suffered a signal loss. He was not only a great lawyer, but also one of those types of honest, up- right citizens whose example and influence, counsel and help can little be spared at this time. He was a link be-

tween the men like Governor Price, Governor Mathews, Judges Snyder and Holt through to the present. He saw the old Virginia type and lived and worked with the modern West Virginia. His never failing stand for principle and truth was the crowning glory of his honorable, active and useful life. As prosecuting attorney, senator, lawyer and citizen he was always the courtly gentleman, the unswerv- ing Christian, the courageous but kindly man-trusted, respected and loved; a leader in his profession; a power, always for right and justice; a good father and husband and a useful man, he filled the full measure of every re- quirement of citizenship. The County of Greenbrier has lost one of its most distinguished men, and this state will miss this able, good man. We extend our sympathy to his family and relatives, and join with his hundreds of friends here in sincere regret and sorrow."'

June 6, 1877, John A. Preston married Miss Sallie Price, third daughter of Governor and Mrs. Samuel Price. She died August 1, 1882, leaving two sons-Samuel Price and James Montgomery. On February 4, 1892, Mr. Preston married Miss Lillie Davis, of Clarksburg, daughter of Hon. John J. Davis. She survives her husband, and her two sons are John J. D. Preston and Walter C. Preston. The former attended Washington and Lee University, served as a lieutenant in the World war, and is now a practicing lawyer at Charleston. Walter C. Preston was also a lieu- tenant in the World war, and is now a student in Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore.

Samuel Price Preston, oldest of the sons of the late John A. Preston, was born July 3, 1879, was educated in local schools, in the Greenbrier Military Academy, the Lee Military Academy, Washington and Lee University, and then took his law course, spending two years in the Uni- versity of Virginia and one year in the University of Michigan. After qualifying for the profession he was a partner with his father until the latter's death, and con- tinues in the practice at Lewisburg. He married Elizabeth Montgomery Mason, daughter of Silas B. and Elizabeth (Montgomery) Mason, of Lewisburg. The five children of their union are: Silas M., John A., Samuel P., Jr., William M. and James Tate.

James Montgomery Preston, second son of John A. Preston, was born August 3, 1881, was educated in Lewisburg, and later in Virginia attended Locust Dale Academy, Pantop's Academy, Valley High School, and Washington and Lee University. He completed his business education with a course in Sadler's Business College in Baltimore. His home has always been in Lewisburg, where he is prominent in local affairs. He is a Knight Templar Mason. On June 6, 1906, he married Miss Frances Flournoy, daughter of former State Senator Samuel L. Flournoy and Fanny A. (White) Flournoy, of Charleston. The children of their marriage are: James Stuart, Frances Flournoy, Margaret Lynn, James Montgomery, Jr., and Minnie Frazier. .

JOHN ANDERSON HUNTER, M. D. A life marked by ex- alted personal and professional stewardship and by able, generous and kindly service in behalf of his fellow men was that of the honored pioneer physician and surgeon to whom this brief memoir is dedicated and who was a resi- dent of Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, at the time of his death, April 17, 1873.

Doctor Hunter was born in what is now Greenbrier County, West Virginia, and the date of his nativity was April 15, 1818. He was a son of Henry B. and Elizabeth Gratton (Anderson) Hunter, whose marriage was solemnized January 31, 1810, other publications of standard order giv- ing adequate record of the life of Henry B. Hunter and of the family history. Doctor Hunter was of staunch Scotch- Irish ancestry. His maternal grandfather, John Anderson, was one of the first elders in the historic old stone Presby- terian Church at Lewisburg, he having settled on land granted to him, on Greenbrier River, for services rendered as a patriot soldier in the war of the Revolution, in which he won the rank of captain. Captain Anderson wedded Elizabeth Turpin Davis on the 7th of January, 1761, and their daughter Elizabeth Gratton (Mrs. Henry B. Hunter),

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was born September 11, 1778. Captain John Anderson gave to his daughter, Elizabeth, a part of his fine old estate on the Greenbrier River, and at the death of the daughter the property passed to her sons, John Anderson (subject of this memoir) and Henry Fielding.

Much of the preliminary education of Dr. John A. Hunter was received under the able preceptorship of Doetor Me- Elhenny at the Lewisburg Academy, one of the historic old institutions of what is now West Virginia. Later he received from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), at Lexington, Virginia, his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and after his return home he read medicine under the direction of Dr. Moorman for three years. He then entered the celebrated old Jefferson Medical College in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in the same he was graduated, with high honors, on the 26th of March, 1842. After thus receiving his degree of Doetor of Medieine he engaged in the practice of his profession at Blue Sulphur Springs, in the present Greenbrier County, West Virginia, that place having been at that time a famous resort for representative people of Virginia and other Southern states. After several years of successful prae- tice at that point Doctor Hunter established his residence and professional headquarters at Lewisburg, where he con- tinued his benignant ministrations in his profession during the remainder of his active career, save for the period of his service in connection with the Civil war.

Doctor Hunter was a loyal and ardent supporter of the policies and attitude of Virginia in the climacterie period leading up to the Civil war, and when seeessiou of the Southern states finally resulted and the war between the North and the South was instituted, he forthwith tendered his services to the Confederate government. He went forth as surgeon with Capt. Robert F. Dennis in the Twenty- estimtae has been written: "In the long list of distinguished were his services in this connection that he was advanced to the responsible office of medical director of the Army of Virginia. Of his record in this connection the following estimate has been wrtten: "In the long list of distinguished surgeons in the Confederate Army none contribued more indefatigably than he to the improvement and completion of the system of medical and hospital discipline instituted by the surgeon general-a system which for order and symmetry and judicious arrangement has no parallel in the annals of war." Faithful and effective service was given by Doetor Hunter in this connection, and upon the close of the war he accepted with characteristie poise and potent equinimity the changed order of affairs and girded himself for further helpfulness to his home community and state and his loved Southland. He returned to Lewisburg, and here he con- tinued his humane mission in the service of those in affliction and distress, never failing to heed the call of suffering and ever standing ready to give his professional aid to the most lowly as well as to those of high estate. Gentle, tolerant, unselfish, benevolent and kindly, his heart was attuned to that fine chord of sympathy which expresses it- self in human helpfulness, and he was guide, counselor and friend in the community, as well as the faithful and efficient physician and surgeon whose stewardship took slight thought of the emolument that might attend his ministrations. The poor found him always ready to aid and suecor, and his personal and eivie ideals were of the highest. He was the courteous, urbane aud dignified gentleman of the fine old Southern regime, was a devout churehman, was affiliated prominently with the Masonic fraternity, and as a citizen was liberal and publie-spirited. To him was accorded the affection, regard and the high esteem of the community in which he long lived and wrought to goodly ends, and it is pleasing to offer in this volume a tribute to the memory of this noble man and distinguished physician.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 3, Part 203

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